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nB HEART OF MEXICO 



POLITICS! RELIGIONM WaR! 



PAIN AND HER METHODS 
OVERTHROWN. 



A LECTURE 



W)^F. CLOUD, 

First Sergeant Co. K, Second Ohio, Mexican War. 
Colonel Second, Tenth and Fifteenth Kansas, 1867-65. 



Copyright 1898, by W. f. Cluc:^. 



1096: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap, Copyright No.. 

Shelf.. 



„\::5 



UNITED STATES. OF AMERICA. 






/^' 






-A' 



THE HEART OF MEXICO; 

A Lecture by COL. W. F. CLOUD, of Kansas City, Mo. 



Of all countries on the globe Mexico, in many respects, 
nuist rank as the most wonderful. She is wonderful as to 
climate, soil, prodiictions, topography and geographicalloca- 
tion; but such themes will receive no mention at this time. 
Nor will her peoples be the subject of remark, notwithstand- 
ing the interest which attaches to their origin, their migra- 
tions, or the time when they first occupied their very peculiar 
country- where the Spanish conquerors found them. 

They were there, mi.'.io"': of them; the}- had an origin- 
al civilization; they had political organizatit ' -osperit}' 
and plenty. The>- were rich prey for the human-formed 
demons who despoiled them. While they had n^^mbers and 
courage, and fought with desperate tenacity, the\ unfortun- 
ately lacked arms and military skill whereby to destro}- their 
spoilers. 

Whoever would "do" INIexico must climb. The country 
is very moinitainous. Much of the land consists of elevated 
plateaus. The Cit}' of Mexico lies in a valley which is seven 
thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. 

Go to one of the coming six-hundred-ston,- houses in 
this, the future great city (Kansas City); enter the elevator 
and go to the top; take a flying-ship, one of those birds of 
passage of coming generations, and sail oiT at that eleva- 
tion eighteen hiuidred miles, a little to the west of south, 
and you will be able to step oiT at the Hotel Iturbide in the 
City of the Aztecs. 

. There, 3'ou are in that wonderful vallej' of volcanoes; 
by the graves of unknown nations; on the lava-covered soil 
where nature once poured forth her awe-inspiring flames, 
and, later, the brave Aztecan smig of greatness and of glors'. 



^f- 



2 Thk Heart of Mexico. 

In that historic vallc}' 3^011 are at the center of a popu- 
lation of 12,000,000. One-half of them are full-blooded 
Indians, about 4,000,000 mixed whites and Indians, i ,500,000 
native whites, probably 200,000 Americans from the United 
States and 100,000 Europeans. 100,000 other foreigiiers, in- 
cluding Chinese, and some 100,000 mulattoes and negroes. 
Spanish is the recognized language, but a majority- of the 
nation use the various Indian dialects of their ancestors. 
Nearl}^ two millions speak the Aztecan tongue. This numer- 
ical preponderance of Indian and Mestizo asserts itself every- 
where. 

Go a few blocks eastward from the hotel where you 
landed and you are in the "Zocalo," the Grand Plaza. Way 
to the front .stands the "volcan" Popocatepetl, 10,000 feet 
above you. To the left of that mountain rises Ixtaccihuatl, 
nearly as high, each with its crown of abiding snow and ice. 
Mountains circumvallate the scene. No street in the city in 
any direction which does not open to a mountain view in di- 
rect line. I^akes, as gems, bestud the verdant plain. Cha- 
pultepec rises in grandeur at the citj' limits. There, are the 
trees of mammoth proportions, under whose shade Monte- 
zuma rested in regal relaxation. There, are the pools where 
in royal state he took his baths. 

On two sides of the Plaza are mercantile palaces. On 
your immediate front is the famous Halls of the Montezumas, 
now the National Palace. On your left is the Grand Cathe- 
dral, three hundred and eighty-seven feet long and one 
hundred and seventy-seven feet wide. 

Two millions of dollars are represented in the structure 
and its adornments. Two hundred years passed while it was 
being erected. It stands on the gTOund once occupied b)- 
the great Aztecan Temple and where unnumbered thousands 
were sacrified to the war-god Huitzilopochtli, among whom 
were scores of Spaniards from the army of Cortez, who thus 
met a well-deserved fate. 

Go up the towers, more than two hundred feet high, 
and von are in the very space where those victims shrieked 



The Heart oe Mexico. 3 

out their souls in the, painful ordeal and agony of immola- 
tion, wherein the priests — through an incision in the side — 
tore out the hearts of the living, dying offerings. 

Enter the Cathedral. You are filled with awe at its 
magnitude and magnificence. Ninety quadruple columns 
of colos.sal and symetrical proportions support the arched 
ceilings nearly two hundred feet in height. It seems larger 
and larger, and higher and higher as you peer into its shad- 
owy distances and try to penetrate the dreamy, glimmering 
.spaces above. Music peals forth from some far off gallery. 
It falls upon your ear wath the pathos of the agonies of all 
the past. In it you can hear the shrieks in their death- 
throes of the victims of the war-god in the years of Aztecan 
dominion. You think of the Spaniards, of their Tlascalan, 
their Otomiean, their Cempoalan and their Texcocan allies; 
of old and young, of prisoners of war and of voluntary vic- 
tims who sought b}' personal sufferings and death to attain 
a happy eternity. Still the music rolls and peals out. Still 
in it you can hear, as "with your ears," the discord of torn 
and bleeding and of "broken hearts;" the wails of woe — 
the cries of despair from lost, lost souls. 

But, while themes like these are deepl}' interesting, this 
occasion will be improved in presenting some of the thrilling 
and sanguinary' struggles through which the people passed 
in their attainment of liberty, and by which the Republic of 
Mexico was e.stablished. 

Out from one of the .states of Mexico, Oaxaca, came 
two grand men. To them and their achievements this hour 
.shall be dedicated. 

Ninety-two years ago Benito Pablo Juarez w^as born. 
Twenty- four years later Porfirio Diaz first saw the light. 
These two men have greatly contributed to make the Nine- 
teenth Century itself illustrious. Under their patriotism, 
genius and labors, the government of Mexico was changed 
from a Theocracy to a Deimocracy, the only instance of 
such a change in the historv of the world. 



4 ' The Heart of Mexico. 

Juarez was the poineer reformer. He stands to Mexi- 
cans as Moses stood to the Israelites in Egypt, their leader 
and law-giver. As Cromwell stood to the Puritans of Eng- 
land, a national and political reformer who hurled into the 
air a thousand useless dogmas. As Washington stands to 
Americans, the first in the hearts of his countrymen, the 
benefactor of his people for all time. As I^incoln stands 
among humanitarians, a grand exemplar of emancipation. 

Juarez came from the lowest rank of Mexican society. 
His childhood was spent in poverty, ignorance and squalor. 
He had no exemplar or instructor in the high order of work 
which fell to him. He had to learn by intuition, by experi- 
ence. He thus learned and became the leader of his people, 
undaunted, self- poised, thoroughly prepared, confident. He 
was not a man of speeches, but of intense resolve and of 
intelligent persistent action. He rode on the cap- wave of a 
turbulent tide but made a safe landing. He was unher- 
alded, unknown except by his works — but by his works is 
destined to become well known and immortal. 

Three centuries before his day the Mexicans had en- 
dured and suffered the brutal and ferocious acts committed 
during the conquest by Cortez, which can be summed up in 
three words, "blood and ashes." For three centuries 
they endured and suffered from the iniquitous and abomin- 
able system of oppression and t5^rann3^ established by those 
who followed the conquerors, a system of robbery and slavery. 
Immense territories had been depopulated, and millions of 
natives sacrificed by the cupidity and brutality of task-mas- 
ters to secure revenue for the sensual and unfeeling monarch 
of Spain and his courtiers; for so long as revenue flowed 
freely into the royal treasury what did they care? 

The adventurer, the official, the soldier and the priest 
had preyed upon the Indians. They had despoiled them of 
liberty and property. In greed and lust they had invaded 
and destroyed the family relation. Children had been sold 



The Heart of Mexico. 5 

into slaver>- and men consigned to hopeless and lonely sen-i- 
tude in mine and field as laborers or as beasts of burden. 

Saddened, oppressed and weighed down by conquest, 
mutilated by the sword of the conqueror and ground to the 
very dust and ashes of poverty b}' his relentless imposts and 
all-devouring a\-arice, poor and despised; degenerated from 
the rank which ihcy held in the days of Montezuma, ban- 
i.shed into Uie most l)arren districts where their efforts 
gained for them only a precarious existence, swarming the 
.streets of the cities, ba.sking in the sun during the daj' and 
pa.ssing the night in the open air, they afforded, during the 
centuries of Spanish rule, a sad and striking example of that 
general degradation which the government of Spain brought 
upon the natives of all the Spanish- American colonies. 

Spain never gave the world a good example and never 
followed one. Her government, though a theocrac}^, was 
one of the most base and despicable dynasties that ever 
existed. Eminently a religious nation, her religion was but 
bigotry and it influenced men to deeds of direst cruelty. In 
the language of Senator Thurston, "Spain has set up more 
cro.sses, in more lands, beneath more skies, and under them 
has butchered more people than all the nations of the earth 
combined." 

After three centuries of the misrule and the ruin of Spain, 
Mexican patriots, through the ordeal of suffering, blood and 
death, attained political independence. Their freedom from 
Spanish theocracj- came later. 

Here let me say that Spain's administrations in Cuba 
have shown no evidence of improvement or reform. She has 
been controlled by the same religion and bigotry, has main- 
tained the .same tyrannical policies and been represented by 
the .same treacherous, inhuman, cruel and blood-thirsty 
minions as in Mexico. 

Cubans have been struggling for libert}', religious as 
well as political. They would throw off the barbarism and 
cur.se of Spanish tyranny and theocracy. They have suc- 
ceeded. Surely divine providence and America's mission of 
political evangelism will prove to be flat failures if Spain 
henceforth holds the "Pearl of the Antilles." 



6 The Heart of Mexico. 

Generations of Mexicans followed generations, each 
retaining knowledge of the woes of their ancestors. Upris- 
ings had been suppressed. Organizations prohibited and 
bondage more and more hopeless fastened upon them. But 
by secret and continuous narrations, each knew of their 
ancient liberty and happiness, their wealth, their political 
and domestic peace, their manhood. 

Hatred toward their conquerors and oppressors had 
never died out in the natives. It descended as a sacred 
heritage, a heritage in which hope of deliverance, though 
not extinct, had well-nigh turned to despair. 

Juarez inherited all this animosity to Spaniard, to 
Spain, to soldier, to Priest. He deprecated the ill-advised 
efforts to force the methods of Spain and her religion upon 
the Mexicans by the use of arms. He knew that the 
religion of his ancestors was one of pure morals, honesty, 
temperance and education, in all of which it was superior to 
that of his day, when, by reason of the covetousness, duplicity 
and licentiousness of their teachers — dishonesty, falsehood 
and vileness prevailed among the masses. He knew that 
his ancestors were men of skill as artizans, engineers, 
mechanics and agriculturalists. He knew that^ they were 
record-keepers, that they preserved their civil, political and 
religious laws, tenets, histories and general literature by a 
method and style peculiar to themselves — by pictorial illus- 
trations — being words, sentences and idioms in pictures, and 
that their knowledge of astronomy had attained such per- 
fection that, at the date of the conquest, they had a more 
accurate calendar than had the astronomers of Europe. He 
knew that the priest — and the soldier at the instigation of 
the priest — had gathered together all the literature of his 
highly educated and civilized people into mountains of 
bound volumes and manuscripts and then had burned all to 
ashes in the name of the Christ of their religion. He knew 
that never did fanaticism achieve a more signal triumph 
than in this annihilation of so many instructive monuments 
to human ingenuity and learning. He knew that a few 
years after the conquest the priest by persuasion, by force 
and by fraud, had induced millions of the natives to profess 



TiiK Heart oe Mexico. 7 

the reli.s:ion of Christ; but he also knew that their faith 
remained essentially the same and that for want of educa- 
tion they knew but little of religion except its external 
forms, while in morals they had deteriorated. He knew 
that the torments inflicted in the inquisition were far more 
barbarous than those perpetrated by Azetecan priests upon 
prisoners of war in the religious ceremonies in the Mexican 
temples, ''tcocallis,'' houses of God. He knew that the vic- 
tims who perished in the inquisition were branded with 
infam>- in this world and consigned to perdition in the next, 
while the Aztec priest devoted his offerings to the gods — 
thereby ennobling them. He knew that such a death was 
at times voluntarily embraced as a sure passport to a happy 
eternity. 

As an educated Mexican, Juarez knew that the govern- 
ment of his ancestors was an elective monarch}^, and that 
the administrations of that monarchy tended to the happi- 
ness and prosperity of the people. He regarded the destruc- 
tion of the Aztecan government and the degradation and 
en.slavement of its citizens as one of the greatest outrages 
written on the pages of the world's hi.story — unjustified and 
uniustifia]:ile upon any hypothesis. 

Columbus having discovered the new world and brought 
it under the dominion of the Spanish monarch laid a tax 
upon the natives. This tax was to be paid quarterly and 
was excessively exorbitant. Many failing to pay were 
sent as slaves to Spain. Others offered time-service or labor 
as a substitute for gold, cotton and other products of the 
country. This was the beginning of that sj^stem of rcpa?-- 
timicntos, tnider which the natives were made the ser\^ants 
and slaves of the Spaniards. This system was adopted by 
Cortez and his as.sociates in Mexico and it was carried to the 
utmost limit. There never was a thought that the Indian 
had title to his land, his liberty or the products of his labor. 
All, all belonged to the conquerors. 

From the date of the conquest the clergy charged them- 
selves with two lines of work. One was to see to the 



8 The Heart of Mexico. 

spiritual welfare of the Indians and to that they devoted some 
of their time and had some success. The other was to 
secure as much as possible of the wealth of the country into 
the hands of the priests and the coffers of the church, and 
in the last named duty they had gratifying results. Not- 
withstanding losses consequent on war, in the beginning of 
the great struggle for liberty inaugurated by Juarez, the 
holdings of the church and ecclesiastics were $500,000,000 
in real estate and $150,000,000 in cash and other personal 
propert5^ The coffers of the church were full of mouldering 
money while the state treasury was empty. 

During the eighteenth and the first part of the nine- 
teenth centuries the incomes of the church arising from land 
holdings and clerical services amounted to thirteen million 
dollars annually, and the arch-bishop managed to keep the 
wolf of want from the door of his domestic domicile — 
wherein no wife could overtax his income by personal or so- 
cial indulgence in dress, adornments, equipage or entertain- 
ments — by having apportioned as his share one-third of the 
gross amount, thus giving him the royal income of eleven 
thousand dollars for each and every day of his life as the 
representative of the meek and lowly Christ "who had not 
where to lay his head." 

But let two honest Spaniards — Don Jorge Juan and 
Don Antonio Ulloa — describe how the "L^aws of the Indies" 
were executed; and the happiness they had secured for the 
Indians two centuries after the Spaniards began to fulfill 
their divine mission in the New World. These two gentle- 
men, while coming to America on a scientific mission in 
1735, were privately commissioned to report generally about 
the condition of the country and the people, and in 1748 
they submitted their "Noticias Secretas" (Private Report). 
We quote from the English translation published by Crocker 
and BreWvSter of Boston in 1851. 

The report in part explains the many devices by which 
the priests relieved the Indians of what little sustenance 
they had succeeded in concealing and saving from the lynx- 
eyed and greedy corregidor, and states the yearly contribu- 



The Hkart of Mexico. 9 

tions, in kind, received by a curate "whose parish was not 
one of the most lucrative," namely, more than 200 sheep, 
6,000 hens, 4,000 guinea pigs and 50,000 eggs. These were 
besides the payments in mone3\ The churches were con- 
verted into factories, where the Indians, "after mass had 
been said, were shut in, just as at the mills, and their occu- 
pation could not be disguised because the noise of the frames 
or weaving rods could be distinctlj^ heard from the outside. 
The Indians, of course, received no compensation for their 
labor. If an Indian died leaving some property, the 'curate 
became the universal heir,' collecting together live stock 
and utensils, and stripping the wife and children of every- 
thing they had. The method of doing it consisted in mak- 
ing for the deceased a sumptuous funeral however repug- 
nant it might be to the views of the interested parties. ' ' The 
wretched condition of the Indians, says the report, is to be 
attributed to the vices of , the priests, the extortions of the 
officials and bad treatment from Spaniards generally. * * 
It also happens that the 3'oung, not being able to labor, are, 
by the corregidor — or tax collector — made subject to tribute 
illegally; and fathers and elder brothers are bound, if the}^ 
would not see a son or brother punished with the whip, to 
unite their eflforts to help him earn the tribute mone5^ '^' * 
"The Indian women specially are obliged to task themselves 
the whole year round in order to meet, b}- unremitting toil, 
the unjust demands of the corregidor." -■' * * "Nor is 
the corredigor content with obliging those to pa}' who are 
exempt by law, it is often carried to such extent as to en- 
force the paj-ment of a two- fold contribution." 

"All these calamities are brought upon the Indians b)^ 
their parish priests who, while they should be their spiritual 
fathers and their protectors against the unrighteous extor- 
tions of the corregidors, do themselves go hand in hand with 
the latter to wrest from the poor Indian the fruit of his 
incessant toil, even at the cost of the blood and sweat of a 
people whose condition is so deplorable that, while they have 
abundant means to enrich and aggrandise others, are desti- 
tute of a .scanty allowance of bread for their own meagre 
sustenance. 



lo The Hkart op Mexico. 

Mexico, under Spain, was a government of the Viceroy, 
an autocracy, a theocracy. There were but two classes of 
citizens, the army and the clergy. The constant sound of the 
drum and the bell, from early morn to midnight, with ever 
exhibited show and parade in uniform and canonical robes 
testified to the dominance of military and spiritual power. 
The divine right of kings and officials was a religious tenet, 
a profound conviction. No one questioned it. This de- 
scended to the nation and ruled the people, whatever the 
form of government. It had been thoroughly ingrained into 
the brain of almost every man that the government had 
absolute right over him, that in some miraculous manner he 
belonged to the state and the church, the man with a sword 
and the man with a cross in hand; that the government 
owned the people. 

True, Spain had ceased to rule, but the superstitious 
incubus remained. Though a republic, Mexico was strictly 
a theocracy; a government in which one particular church 
held jurisdiction over the souls and bodies of the people. 
The throne had disappeared, but the power behind the 
throne remained. 

Filled with knowledge of all the past, and deeply im- 
pressed with truths of the present, Juarez stood as one in- 
spired, as one selected by providence to do a grand work for 
Mexico. God in his wisdom seems to have ordained that 
his appointed and annointed leaders should come forth from 
the people whose wrongs they are to redress and whose 
rights they are to secure and protect. 

Not as a soldier did the savior of Mexico come upon the 
field, but as a civillian, a man of education, a lawyer and 
advocate, as a statesman and patriot, as chief magistrate of 
the nation. Though not a military man, his physical cour- 
age equalled that of any son of mars. By his life, his prin- 
ciples and his political and executive actions he warred 
against the most skillful, conscienceless and experienced 
political and ecclesiastical power with which a Mexican 
could ever contend. His moral courage was therefore almost 
infinitely beyond the physical. 

Benito Pablo Juarez was a pure-blooded Indian of the 



The Hkart of Mexico. ii 

Zapoteca tribe. He was born in an adobe house with a dirt 
floor, in the state of Oaxaca, on the 21st day of March, 
1806. He became an orphan in infancy-, his father having 
died just before and his mother soon after his birth. At 
the age of twelve he could only speak his native tongue and 
could neither read nor write. Being a penniless orphan, he 
toiled at boyish occupations among which was herding cat- 
tle. His industry and intelligence attracted the attention 
and enlisted the sympath}- of a merchant who placed him in 
a .seminary. He pa.s.sed the course of stud}- in that school 
with honor, when a religious zealot, noting his good quali- 
ties, proposed to provide for his education for the priest- 
hood. While the yotith appreciated the generous offer his 
honesty and patriotism forbade its acceptance. The times 
were very favorable for education in the politics of the coun- 
try as ever since he began his studies there had been a 
continual series of pronunciamientoes, outrages and revolu- 
tions and party zeal had risen to the grade of excessive heat. 
The country was in a state of general political and military 
excitement, and war was almost continuous. Juarez, early 
in his knowledge of these excitements and contests, had 
adopted liberal principles and had become the enemj^ of the 
ambitious and covetous priests. Under the influence of his 
very po.sitive political principles he declined to study for the 
priesthood and decided to become an advocate or attorney at 
law. Availing himself of all means at his command he 
received the degree of bachelor of laws in 1832 and at the 
same time was elected deputy to the legislature of Oaxaca, 
his native state. Two years later he graduated and took 
rank as aba^^ado or attorney at law. 

Thus rapid was the elevation of this humble-born 
Indian boy, who, at the age of twelve years, nearly naked, 
worked in his native mountians and whose hopes at that 
time of acquiring education, position and fame were on a 
par with the cattle which he herded. Twent3'-four 3'ears 
after this date he occupied the presidential chair and could 
use with energy and eloquence the language of which he 
knew not a single syllable at the age of twelve years. 

During her first tliirty-sevtn years of independence 



12 The Heart of Mexico. 

Mexico had eight or nine distinct forms of government, 
fifty changes in the office of chief executive and more than 
three-hundred revolutions. These changes came from the 
army and the church or were the patriotic uprisings of the 
people to resist or overthrow usurping and oppressive admin- 
istrations which had no better right or title to power than 
the will and ambition of the clergy or the military. 

The mass of the people were educated to the convic- 
tion that they were the property of the state and the church. 
To resist the right of the state was treason and the penalty 
was death. To question the right of the church was heresy 
and the penalty was excommunication, ostracism, death and 
eternal perdition. 

Thus mental slaver3^ and entire subjection to the will 
and judgment of spiritual teachers was the secret of their 
self-abnegation. They not only consented to belong to 
somebody, but they yielded to the idea that they had no 
right to think or to express their thoughts. The inquisition 
had been abolished, but no liberty or enlargement had fol- 
lowed. The sword and the cross, still united, still held sway. 
The people did not realize or say that the army were robbers 
and that the priests were hypocrites and spoilsman, as well 
the}' might. 

It was thus that Jviarez looked upon them and 
knew them. But while he knew that superstition-inspir- 
ing dogmas, attitudes, gowns, forms of worship, show and 
parade do not constitute the genius of religion, are not the 
ends and objects of revelation, are not the culmination of the 
grace of God, he yet made no war upon tenet or ceremony. 
He was not a religious, but a political reformer. He would 
separate church and state. He would displace the priest 
from political control, would stop his spoils, make him 
subject to the civil law and tax his property. He would 
make the military subject to the civil power. 

While thus disposed toward those factors in the weal and 
woe of the commonwealth, he 3^earned for the elevation of 
the people. He knew that the education of the poorer 
classes was almost entirely neglected and that it was the 
custom to regard the Indian as a beins: that did not belong 



Til]': Hi<:akt of Mkxico. 13 

to llie Inunan race. He knew that of the fotr: millions form- 
ing this class not four in a thousand cotild read and scarcely 
one in a thousand could sign his name. 

He was saddened to know that their moral debasement 
was in keeping with their abject ignorance, and more sad- 
dened to know that they had sunk mtich lower in morals 
than when Cortez .set foot on the soil of Mexico. 

He knew that this ignorance, attended with a degrading 
stiperstition. wei'e the chief .shackels which bound them. 
Therefore he would introduce a system of primary edttca- 
tion as the most sure means of their elevation and liberty. 
He would recognize and teach the eqtial political rights of 
each indi\-idual, though so to do had long been denounced 
by the clergy as a danniable heresy. He wotdd unify all 
cla.s.ses for their mutual improvement. He wotdd encourage 
innnigration and therewith the introdtiction of independent 
tlunight and free disctission. 

Can anyone imagine a harder task than fell to Juarez 
as he thtis tmdertook to revolutionize, to reverse, to educate, 
to rebuild? He was confronted with the army in full co- 
operation with the church. He had to contend with the 
inctibtis of settled methods of belief and action. He was 
face to face with a stiperstition which was pitiable. The 
people did not know what political, wdiat religious liberty 
was. They had been tattght that it was treason, heresy, 
sacrilege, to think a new aspiring thottght or to do an inde- 
pendent act. 

It has been .said that Cromwell's .soldiers learned poli- 
tics upon their knees and received inspiration and courage 
direct from God in answer to prayer. Not so with the fol- 
lowers of Juarez. They imbibed principles of libert}^ were 
relieved from superstitious fears, were enthused with cour- 
age and hope and were led to independent thought and act 
under the teachings of their daring leader and by their ex- 
perience on the field of battle. The impulses of hatred and 
revenge wdiich laid deep down in their minds were developed 
into fierce and sanguinary actions as opportunity offered, for 



14 The Heart of Mexico. 

the lessons of oppression and extortion had been well 
learned in the centuries of hard, bitter, sorrowful experi- 
ence. So they were ruthlessly applied when the people's 
turn came and their spoilers became victims. 

As a leader Juarez captured the confidence, the love, 
the fealty of the multitudes. He offered freedom from the 
exactions and oppressions of the tax collector, the clergy 
and the rich proprietors of the lands. He assured political 
reform on principles, of liberty, equality and justice. Under 
his majestic, magnetic presence and guidance units of weak- 
ness were solidified into a mass of indivisible, unconquerable 
strength, and his final victory was a monument of glory, 
testifying to native Mexican patriotism, persistence and 
statesmanship. 

It was an era of intense excitement. The great ques- 
tion of a basic principle of government was in final issue in 
Mexico. Should it be centralism or federalism, theocracy 
or democracy? That was the question. 

The one man who for a third of a century had been the 
sanguinary representative of centralism was but recently 
driven from executive power. Seek to know the most not- 
able man in Mexican history whose life and character stands 
out as the opposite to that of Juarez and you will find Santa 
Anna, a man who took a leading part in national affairs for 
more than half a century. He was among the patriots who 
secured independence from Spain in 182 1. In 1823 he led a 
successful revolution against the Emperor Iturbide. In 
1828 he resisted the seating of Pedraza who had been elected 
president and secured the installing of Guerrero. In the 
same year he revolted against Guerrero and aided in seat- 
ing Bustamente. In 1829 he revolted against Bustamente 
and in 1832 overthrew him and secured the inauguration of 
Pedraza. In 1833 he was elected president and aspired to 
dictatorial authority. In 1836 he invaded Texas, was de- 
feated and captured and while a prisoner was deposed from 
the presidency. In 1838 he fought the French army at 
Vera Cruz and regained popularity. In 1841 he headed a 
revolution against and overthrew Bustamente for the second 
time. In 1843 he was appointed provisional president and 



The HjvVrt of Mexico. 15 

in 1S44 he proclaimed himself dictator. In i<S45 ^^^ was 
deposed, sentenced to death, had official clemency and was 
exiled. In 1846 he returned to Mexico and was again 
elected president. In 1847 he commanded the army which 
fought General Taylor at Buena Vista. In the same year 
he fought General Scott at Cerro Gordo, Churubu.sco, 
Molino del Rey, Chapultepec and at the garitasof Belen and 
San Cosme. With the fall of the city he left the countr3\ 
In 1853 he was recalled and elected president again. In 
1854 he declared himself perpetual dictator and in the same 
year resisted a revolution. In 1855 he resigned and in hot 
haste fled from the countr}-. In 1S63 he offered his 
services to the French invaders but was rejected. In 
1867 he headed a revolution against President Juarez, was 
captured and condemned to death but had executive 
clemency and left Mexico. In 1873 he returned under a 
general amnesty and lived in retirement until the 20th of 
June, 1876, when his mortal existence terminated in death. 
Although he possessed genius and had education equal or 
superior to Juarez, his patriotic professions were but a high- 
way over which his ambition traveled to grasp at dictatorial 
and imperial power and authorit3\ With unsurpassed 
opportutiities to benefit his country none did it greater in- 
jury. In him the centralist church partj' always found a 
faithful and .sanguinary leader and ally. 

With the downfall of Santa Anna in 1855 the liberal or 
anti-church party first came into power. Alvarez w^as 
appointed provisional president. Juarez became a member 
of the cabinet and the famous and characteristic "Law 
Juarez" was promulgated. This law limited the jurisdic- 
tion of the ecclesiastical tribunals and abolished the charters 
of the clergy and the arm}-. 

Alvarez resigned and Comonfort, his minister of war, 
succeeded him. Under his administration, in 1857, a new 
constitution was adopted in which the spirit of reform was 
crystalized into provisions conferring liberty in teaching, 
release from monastic vows, liberty of the tribune and the 
press, prohibiting corporations from owning real estate, con- 



1 6 The Heart of Mexico. 

ferring upon the civil authorities the right to supervise 
ecclesiastical orders and discipline, declaring the inelligibility 
of members of the sacerdotal profession to the office of 
president or of deputies to congress and the ver}^ important 
feature that the Roman Catholic was not prescribed as the 
religion of the state. 

Impelled by its innate and insatiable love of power and 
revenue, the church party arrayed itself against the new 
constitution and its new officers. A revolution was com- 
menced with Zuloaga as leader. Comonfort made feeble 
resistance and then resigned and left the country. Zuloaga 
was made provisional president and occupied the capital. 
The new constitution was promptly annulled by him. 

On the resignation of Comonfort the constitutional or 
liberal party recognized Juarez as president, he being in the 
line of succession as president of the supreme court, and he 
took the oath of office at Queretaro. 

Thus in January, 1858, at the age of fifty-two, this 
Indian of Oaxaca became chief magistrate. The half-naked 
boy of the despised class, who forty years before had not the 
ability to read or write and could only speak his native 
tongue, had risen to power through the adverse conditions 
which could onlj^ exist in that age and that land. 

When education enlarged his intellect, when official 
positions came to him by the will of the people and in a 
legal manner, when duty and opportunity led him on until 
he held' executive power as president of the Republic of 
Mexico he had one and only one ambition. That was to 
right the wrongs of his people, and to accomplish that he 
smote the enemy persistently — though no rudeness or bar- 
barity marked his acts. While brave and firm as the stand- 
ard-bearer of the liberties of his country, he never exhibited 
spite toward his opponents. While he had abiding faith in 
his mission, he was not ostentatious in his triumphs nor 
harsh in the treatment of his enemies, nor did he ever ex- 
hibit heart-burning rancor. Anger and malice never in 
him caused reason to abdicate nor extinguish her torch. 
He bore sarcasm and insult with admirable resignation. He 



Thp: Hkart of Mexico. 17 

was not diverted from the line of dut}' by slander and false 
accusation, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction 
to the government, nor death to himself. Believing that 
right makes might he performed his duty under the inspira- 
tions of faith and hope. He never wavered nor flinched, no, 
not even when at Guadalajara the rifles of a turbulent 
priesthood and treacherous soldier}' were aimed at his breast. 
While desiring success he disdained to secure it b}^ com- 
promise. His w^hole character and policy is revealed in his 
favorite dictum — which almost runs paralell with the 
golden rule of Christ — "Respect for the Rights of Others is 
Peace." To attain direct results he swept away traditions 
and precedents. His conscience was his "egeria," his in- 
spiration. Duty was his religion and when country was at 
stake he seemed to carry that religion to the point of heroic 
fanaticism. He faced every crisis without hesitation, deter- 
mined not to yield one iota of his duties as trustee of the 
nation and to defend at all hazards the constitution, the 
honor and the independence of the republic. He moved on 
with a practical policy which was as fixed as the decrees of 
fate and as steadj^ as the foot-steps of time. His tenacity 
to his trust sustained the republic during her darkest era — 
the struggle with the French army. 

The United States was the first secular government 
ever formed in the world. Recollect that. Juarez reformed 
and reconstructed Mexico into the next. Recollect that too. 

A government in which every church has exactly the 
same rights and no more; in which every religion has the 
same rights and no more. A government whose constitu- 
tion said "Congress shall make no law respecting an estab- 
lishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exerci.se 
thereof. ' ' There was little opposition to that principle in 
the United States. 

For thirty-three years the con.stitution of Mexico had 
said "The religion of the Mexican nation is and 7vill be per- 
petually the Roman Catholic Apostolic. The nation will 
protect it b}' wise and just law^s and prohibit the exercise of 
any other ivhatever.'' 



1 8 The Hkart of Mexico. 

It took heroism to propose the change from theocracy 
to democracy. In Mexico the church held the sword and 
was skillful in its use. The cross and the sword had 
marched hand in hand on the road to conquest. The cross 
and the sword had shared the rich spoils of Mexico. The 
cross had received large concessions of land and important 
privileges. The cross had controlled ecclesiastical courts 
and councils, the confessional and the Halls of Torment in 
the inquisition. The cross now had control of civil courts 
and their processes. 

It required more than physical courage for Juarez now 
to attempt to wrest the sword from tne powerful hands of 
the church. Recollect that also. 

Juarez was inaugurated president in January. Zuloaga 
placed troops in the field to capture him and to break up his 
government. He fled to Guanajuata and then to Guadala- 
jara. At the latter place he was captured and sentenced to 
death, but while he stood before the firing detail expecting 
execution, a friendly force made rescue and he was enabled 
to reach the city of Manzanillo on the Pacific coast. He 
then sailed for and crossed the Isthmus of Panama, took 
ship for New Orleans and thence for Vera Cruz, where, on 
the 4th of May, he was cordially received by the governor 
and other political friends. The city of Vera Cruz was a 
strong place sustained as it was by the Castle of Ulua and 
being the principal port of Mexico, the revenues there col- 
lected aided to secure funds to carry on the war. 

When Juarez left the Pacific coast he disclosed his plans 
to no one. His appearance at Vera Cruz was therefore a 
great surprise to all. He took with him no army; so when 
he issued his proclamations the chief force behind him was 
the moral power which attached to the office of presi- 
dent under the constitution. But when it became known 
that he had established the government at Vera Cruz and 
needed military aid all the constitutionalists and liberals in 
the covmtry united to his support. The result was a repeti- 
tion of the grand, popular movement of 18 10, when the 
multitudes flocked to the standard of Hidaleo and his cus- 



After (" Biography of Diaz ") on 19th page, read: 

The army of Juarez was reinforced by guerrillas from 
the mountains and the valleys. When defeated in one 
action they dispersed only to reunite on other fields. With 
no baggage- trains nor artillery they effected rapid and secret 
movements. With success their numbers increased and 
eventually by capture and by purchase they had the re- 
quired munitions and secured final victory. 

Let me say now, the greatest test of courage on earth 
is to bear defeat without losing heart and hope. That army 
is the bravest which can be whipped the greatest number of 
times and fight again. By this test the liberal army was 
pre-eminently a brave one. Defeated three times out of 
every four contests, it remained courageous to the end. 
The maxim of Juarez was, "Thus we go from defeat to de- 
feat on to an ultimate victory." 

It was a church fight. The church again in its history 
used the sword. The lines were closely drawn and all the 
horrors of fratricidal war, with its sanguinary reprisals, 
were perpetrated. It became a rule follow^ed on all occa- 
sions to put to death all chiefs and other persons of influence 
who were so unfortunate as to be captured, and often pri- 
vates from the ranks suffered the same fate. 

It was a war for the life or the death of theocracy or 
democracy in Mexico, and it raged with all the horrors of 
religious \\'ars and was the most sanguinary of all the in- 
ternecine struggles in which Mexicans had ever engaged. 
The whole political heavens were lurid, were blood red 
with the passions of war. The clergy launched anathemas 
against Juarez and the liberal cause and published them 
broadcast. They used the pulpit and the confessional to ex- 
cite the fears of the timid and to stir up the fires of fanaticism, 

Zuloaga continued to occupy the capital and his mili- 
tary forces held most of the cities and strongholds of the 
country. Juarez at that time held onh' a part of the state of 
Vera Cruz. With this prestage, all political powers, includ- 
ing the United States, recognized the Zuloaga government. 



Thk Heart of Mexico. 19 

cessors — tliough the circumstances were greatly changed. 
Then it was an uprising to overthrow the government, now 
it was to sustain the government and uphold the constitu- 
tion. Then the leader was a self-appointed insurgent, was 
of vacillating disposition who when he had the city of 
, Mexico in sight and at his feet, lacked the decision and 
force of character to secure the prize and establish his prin- 
ciples in the form of a new government. Now the leader 
was president of the republic, was a man of stubborn will, 
with clear perceptions and established policies. 

The issues were joined, the war commenced. There was 
little money and less credit. The cause had to depend upon 
it.self. Reprisals were made upon the rich proprietors of the 
haciendas, the clergy and the churches. The bummers of 
the Juarez army were worthy prototypes of that of Sherman 
a few years later. "Stimulated more and more b}' neces- 
sity the soldiers were not limited in their efforts to secure 
funds, from real estate, tithes and such sources, but boldly 
possessed themselves of the ornaments and saered images 
and vases from the altars. At first this caused no small fear 
at the crimes which had been perpetrated, imbued as the 
people liad been from their childhood with superstitious 
reverence, and a cry of horror was raised and divine wrath 
threatened as a consequence of the sacrilege. However, as 
heaven inflicted no vengance, the people little b}' little had 
their fears di.ssipated. The profanations furnished supplies 
and also served to di.sp2l the odor of sanctit}' which sur- 
rounded the sacred temples." (Biography of Diaz.) 

Confronted by these desperate conditions. Actuated by 
his sen.se of justice and equity. Convinced of his dutj' — 
a. id .seeing his opportunity — to save the constitution. Re- 
gardless of the enormous value of the property involved. 
Ignoring the prestige of possession and the rights of owner- 
ship, and assured that the time for heroic treatment had 
come Juarez, on the 12th day of July, 1859, performed the 
most decisive act in the history of the republic bj' fla.shing 
out before the world his brilliant, blazing sun of Emanci- 
I VTION, his decree nationalizing the property of the church, 



20 The Heart of Mexico. 

enlarging the bill of rights of the people and limiting the 
power of the clergy. 

As in the proclamation of Ivincoln, issued three years 
later, emancipating slaves in the United States, theories 
were hurled into the air. Rights of ownership, vested 
rights and prestige of possession were reviewed, defined and 
construed in the courts of the higher law. War, national exi- 
gencies and equity in each case justified the acts. Theories 
were made to accord with realities. Statutes of liberty and 
of right eventually took the place of those of force and 
fraud in the fundamental law — for, pile statute upon statute 
till you reach the skies, a human being cannot, thereby, be 
transformed into a chattel, nor can the robber, the thief and 
the spoilsman acquire equitable title by the lapse of time. 
"One day is with the lyord as a thousand years and a 
thousand years as one day." 

The decree devolved upon the nation all the vast prop- 
erties of the church and the clergy, both regular and secu- 
lar. It separated church and state. It conceded to all 
religious sects the right to teach their doctrines freely. 
The clergy were restricted to voluntary compensation and 
the church was prohibited the right to own real estate. It 
also dissolved absolutely all religious orders and com- 
munities and declared marriage to be a civil contract. 

The decree was based on the fact that the clergy had 
been the principal supporters of royalty in the war for inde- 
pendence, and since that time had been the most powerful 
enemies to liberal principles and that they had promoted 
the present civil war with the object of retaining supremacy 
over political as well as religious affairs. The decree was 
issued not only as a war measure, but as a means to correct 
and control the many evils which existed and it greatly 
assisted the liberal cause. 

Juarez thus became the pioneer of emancipation in the 
western continent. In this contention for law and order 
against revolution and the monopoly of a wealthy, domi- 
neering class Mexico anticipated the United States more 
than three years. The pure patriot and wise statesman 
Juarez stood as firmly for his country at that time as did 



The Heart of Mexico. 21 

Lincoln for his in 1S61, and the final results in Mexico 
in the success of the National cause was not less to the 
benefit and glon- of that nation than was the victon- for 
the constitution, law and order and the overthrow of a dom- 
ineering, revolutionar>- class in the United States in 1865. 

While it may truly be said that Juarez is the Lincoln 
of Mexico, it may quite as truly be said that Lincoln is the 
Juarez of the United States. Lincoln in 1858-60 was talk- 
ing against the system of American SlaA'en,- and its exten- 
sion. He had no plan if even a hope of its utter extinction. 
He proposid no such plan nor expressed such hope. Thoise 
years saw Juarez emancipating his people of Mexico from 
the serfdom in which they were held b}- priests, tax col- 
lectors and domineering soldiers. He was accomplishing 
the cherished wish, plan, hope and ambition of his life. 
Each of these grand men proclaimed emancipation at the 
age of fifty-three. 

Juarez stood as an emancipator from the beginning of 
La lucha por la Libertad, (the struggle for liberty.) 
That was the issue made for him and made bj- him and so 
known and considered bj- friend and foe, and on that issue 
the war was fought to a finish. 

Xor were principles of reform new to his faith and prac- 
tice. In the first years of the republic he was a leader in 
the ■ ' progressist party. ' ' That party worked for libert}- of 
speech and of the press, the repeal or abolition of the 
ecclesiastical and military- statutes whereby the church and 
the army controlled the state : the suppression of convents 
and monasteries as institutions which corrupted the public 
morals, and the making of marriage to be a civil contract. 
As a member of the cabinet of Alvarez and the advisor of 
Comonfort he led in each and ever\- reform established. 

The stand thus taken by Juarez to dispossess the church 
of property, revenue, influence and power was not the re- 
sult of any change in his religion. He was bom and reared, 
lived and died in the pale of the church. He never apos- 
tatized nor was he formally excommunicated. He had no 
assistance in the wa^* of counsel from a prote.stant, nor were 
his acts the result of any conspiracy against the church. 



22 The Heart of Mexico. 

He knew that the vicious greed for wealth and power, in- 
herent in all corporations, was fully developed in the Roman 
Catholic church and clergy; that in Europe they had made 
and destroyed kingdoms and empires by the exercise of their 
well-known world-wide claim to temporal power; that they 
had acted on that claim in the political affairs of Mexico 
and that they were making the fight againt him on that 
claim. He knew the vast wealth which had accrued to the 
church in Mexico and he knew that all the property in its 
hands would be used to crush him and to overthrow the 
constitution. He knew that the equitable title to all the 
lands and the usufruct of the same was still in the people 
who for centuries had been wronged and robbed. There- 
fore he issued his decree. 

Had lyincoln issued his emancipation proclamation 
coincident with his first call for military aid and as a basic 
principle of action the cause of the Union must have failed 
and the Confederacy have been established. 

Juarez daringly led popular sentiment. lyincoln care- 
fully moved with the popular tide. 

In the American revolution there were many Washing- 
tons. . In this struggle for liberty in Mexico all depended 
upon Juarez; he was the chief standard-bearer. Had Wash- 
ington fallen others could have been found to take his 
place; he was one of many. Had Juarez fallen the cause of 
liberty must have failed; he was many in one. 

The assassination of Lrincoln during any year of the 
war of the rebellion would have developed other patriots 
and other statesmen who would have carried his work to 
final success, as was done when he did fall. Juarez was the 
embodiment of his cause; all depended on his life. Amid 
all the lurid passions of the times his figure stood like the 
sturdy oak resisting the concentrated fury of theocracy. 
His fall would have ended democracy in Mexico. He was 
the right man in the right place at the right time. 

It can hardly be denied that had England, France and 
Spain not only acknowledged the confederacy but had sent 
armies to fisrht its battles the Union must have been dis- 



The Heart of Mexico. 23 

ruptecl, Juarez contended successfully against the military 
and moral power of those nations. 

While a due regard to the truths of hi.story acknowl- 
edges the moral influence of the International policy of the 
United States and its exhibition of military force on the Rio 
Grande as a counterpoise to Europe, it still must be admit- 
ted that the diplomatic genius displayed by Juarez was a 
paramount power in presenting the intricate issues involved 
so properly and persistently that the rights of sympathizing 
and reinforcing friends and the palpable wrongs of the 
offending nations stood, respectively, approved and disap- 
proved in the high court of public opinion. 

The first era of I^a lucha por la I^ibertad passed. 
The result was victory' for Juarez and the constitution. On 
the first day of January, 1861, he entered the capital as 
chief magistrate. He was elected president under the 
forms of the constitution and proceeded to reorganize the 
country on the lines of his proclamation and for more than 
a year- he held his w^a)^ with dignity and success. As far as 
Mexicans were concerned his triumph was final. 

But his victory was not as 3'et complete. He was de- 
stined to meet the most terrific storm that ever assailed the 
republic. All political powers but the United States, then 
engaged in her own most desperate struggle for existence, 
hated the Republic of Mexico and despised President 
Juarez and his political principles. Europe in unison con- 
spired against him. England, France and Spain made an 
armed invasion. The Empire of Austria, the Kingdom of 
Belgium and the Pope of Rome co-operated and gave S3'm- 
pathy. Troops from abroad and at home drove him a 
thousand miles from his capital and occupied the countr5\ 
The officers and the functions of the Republic were sup- 
planted by a Monarchy with the Archduke Miximilian on 
the throne. But the statesmanship, the diplomac}', the patriot- 
ism, the patience and the good sense of Juarez, in .spite of 
foreign hate, armed intervention and domestic enemies 
triumphed over all. 



24 - The Heart of Mexico. 

Ah, the sad and. inglorious fate of Maximilian. An 
Austrian Archduke, educated and traveled, selected by the 
wily and intriguing- Napoleon III, to occupy the throne as 
Emperor of Mexico, he took his place as such; becoming 
thereby but a puppet in the hands of that strategetic med- 
dler in the affairs of Europe and America. 

The protege of the Pope, Blessed by him and instructed 
in the basic pHncipIes of the HoivY See. ''Great are the 
rights of nations and they inust be heeded, but greater and 
more sanded are the rights of the church.'' Delegated to 
establish an empire in antagonism to a republic, and later 
by special legate charged to secure ' ' The excl^tsion from the 
Mexican empire of every form of religion but the Roman 
Cathoeic. The independent sovereignity of each bishop m 
his own dioeese. Tlie absohite control of schools and education 
and THE immunity of the church from any interfer- 
ence of the civil authorities" the newly fledged poten- 
tate, overburdened with inconsistent and impossible instruc- 
tions and injunctions sailed for and entered his empire. 

Weak and irresolute, temporizing when possible and 
compromising when compelled to act, dreaming of a kind of 
democratic imperialism, bored with the practical details of 
government, formulating neither fundamental nor statutory 
laws, assuming power as an absolute sovereign, neglecting 
a financial system, depending upon the French general for a 
policy and on the French army for support, affable to all 
political factions but failing to secure the support of any, 
leading a gay life with his suite at the capital, enjoying his 
imperial income as a spendthrift who after suffering much 
from want suddenly enters upon a fortune — wishing the 
world to share his exuberance — he passed the time from 
June, 1864, to the same month in 1867, when under sen- 
tence of death as the decree of a military court he stood up 
in the presence of an immense multitude on the Cerro de las 
Campanas (hill of the bells) at Queretaro to meet his fate. 
True, a most terrible fate, but inflicted substantially in 
accord with his own "October decree" wherein, when 
deeming his government established, he said ' ' that armed 
resistance to his authority would not be considered war but 



The Heart of Mexico. 25 

as acts of bandits, that all such offenders should be tried by 
courts-martial, that the guilty should be summarily exe- 
cuted and that to prisoners in arms no quarter would be 
granted." 

On trial of the emperor the prosecution successfully 
demanded the application of the spirit of his own decree, by 
which distinguished Mexicans had died, and his doom was 
sealed. 

Nor were pleas for clemency, made by governments and 
individuals, of avail. The grim singleness of purpose 
which had made Juarez great and admirable in all his past 
official history, and which had caused him to hold the wel- 
fare of the state as supreme, to the disregard of personal 
interests, maintained control now when mercy to the indi- 
vidual meant injustice to the commonwealth. 

Should jNIaximilian live his cause would also sur\nve 
and give occasion for foreign and domestic uprisings for his 
re-enthronement; a dangerous precedent would be estab- 
lished and encouragement given for other foreign inter- 
meddling in the affairs of Mexico — dictating her policies 
and pursuing the debt created by the inter^-ention and the 
empire. So declared Juarez and the ill-starred Maximilian 
stood to meet his fate. Addressing the soldiers and the sur- 
rounding throng he said: " Mexicanos, I die for a just 
cause, the independence of Mexico. God grant that my 
blood may bring happiness to nw new country. Viva 
Mexico. ' ' 

The voile}' was fired only to bring him wounded to the 
ground, writhing and groaning in agony. An officer b}' a 
shot froni a pistol gave him the golpe de gi^ada — the blow 
of mercy and ended his mortal existence; the spirit of 
Maximilian entered the shadows. 

Prompted by pride he left as his last words to his 
mother, the one living person nearest his heart, "Behold as 
a soldier I have performed my duty." Friends in the 
spirit of kindness had given him the false information that 
his beloved Carlote, his wife, was dead and he cheerfully 
faced death, enthused with the hope of a happy reunion 



26 The Heart of Mexico. 

with her immediately beyond the sad and painful ordeal of 
execution. His last hours might well have been saddened 
by the perfidy of Napoleon III., who in violation of treaty 
stipulations had withdrawn his troops and the heartless in- 
difference of Pope Pius IX., each of whom resented Carlote 
in her appeals for aid, though made upon her knees and 
with dramatic tears and soul-thrilling entreaties. 

After more than a thousand battles and skirmishes and 
the sacrifice of more than forty thousand lives the usurping 
emperor and the invading armies disappeared from the field 
and Juarez again triumphantly entered the capital as chief 
magistrate of the fully established Republic. 

The shadow which all thrones and potentates had 
thrown over Mexico from the beginning was a pall of op- 
pression, superstition and bonds. lyiberty, relief came from"- 
truth and right and not by the will or consent of Popes, 
Emperors, Kings or Generals. Right in this case was 
might. One man and God was a majority, a paramount 
power against thrones and dominions. 

In this grand contention Juarez did not do what others 
thought ought to be done but what he thought should be 
done. All that he wanted done was finally accomplished. 
What chief in history paralells him ? For five years no 
congress held sessions to give him legislative aid; no courts 
issued decrees nor gave verdicts; his cabinet was limited to 
a few personal friends and advisors who shared his retire- 
ment and adversities ; the republic had apparently ceased 
to exist. 

But way beyond the accident and incident of his dis- 
placement from executive power, beyond policy, intrigue, 
compromise and war he saw and patiently waited for the 
end. Strong of faith and assured of the dissolution of the 
so-called empire, of the triumph of his principles, of the 
constitution and of the Republic he listened with stoical 
indifference to the alarms which discouraged and dispersed 
many of his followers. 



The /Heart of Mexico. 27 

Returned, on the death of Maximilian, to the capital 
and the undisputed tenure of the Presidency, Juarez was, in 
time twice reelected to that high office. 

Nothing di.scloses real character like the use of power. 
Most men can stand adversity but if you wish to know 
what a man reall}^ is give him power. This is the supreme 
test. It is the glor>' of that great man that having almost 
ab.solute power he never abused it. His administrations 
were marked b}^ patriotism, personal probity and self-ab- 
negation. His chief ambition was to reconstruct the politi- 
cal affairs of the country and to that work he devoted him- 
self. 

With the final constitutional amendments in process 
which were to place the principles of his decree of emanci- 
pation in the fundamental law he retired to rest on the 1 8th 
of July, 1872. 

In the night he had an attack at the heart and in spite 
of the .sympathy of friends and of the physician's .skill, one 
hour before midnight this grand man exhaled his last 
breath. His life — his character — fully rounded out in ex- 
cellent development had«reached the meridian — the zenith. 
It went out like the paleing of the morning .star in the pure 
light of the rising sun, or the refulgent glory of a perfect 
day. In the language of Sr. Mariscal, minister of relations 
in the cabinet of President Diaz on the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of the death of Juarez, "Like another Moses he had 
lead his people out of the house of bondage and across the 
.sandy desert they were fated to traverse. He released them 
from the serfdom in which they were held b}- priests and a 
pernicious class of .soldiers. He freed them from tho.se 
tyrants, from those infatuated Pharaos. He saved them 
from appalling oppression but after all his weary migrations 
he was not granted to reach the promised land. He was 
barely able to see it from afar on his triumphal return to the 
capital; just as the dying leader and law-giver of the He- 
brews caught a glimp.se of Palestine from the heights of 
Mount Xebo." 

The patriotism of Juarez was unquestioned and dis- 



28 The Heart of Mexico. 

interested. It embraced all the interests of the state. In 
the interest of the commonwealth he fought one of the 
world's greatest battles. The results of the victory which 
crowned that conflict will enure to the benefit of Mexico for 
air time. Such revolutions never go backward. In Mexico 
as in Europe liberty from priestly control will prove to be 
perpetual. 

To select from the many illustrious names which 
abound on the pages of Mexican history that man whose 
life and whose character best exhibits the possibilities 
offered to youth of brain, honesty and industry, even in 
peculiar Mexico, who in early life was taught firmness and 
stability by the motionless, snow-capped mountains; quiet- 
ness and placidity by the lakes within the valleys; patriotism 
by the sorrows of his despoiled kindred, and ambition by the 
bright stars shining over his head; the one whose life was a 
benediction; the one whose name is tenderly enshrined in 
every heart and lovingly voiced by every tongue; for such a 
one go to the adobe hut, the home of the lowly Indian, and 
select the child of poverty and orphanage, the youth of ad- 
vertity and toil, the student of diligence and promise, the 
man of virtue and integrity, the champion of law and 
liberty, the emancipator of his nation from the curse of 
ecclesiasticism in politics — Benito Pablo Juarez. 

In the Panteon de San Ferna^ido, in the City of Mexico, 
I stood by a noble marble mausoleum, the resting 
place of the lyiNCOLN of Mexico. Upon a dais rests a 
sarcophagus containing his mortal remains. On the top is 
his recumbent statue of marble — cold in death; over which 
a seraphim with over-shadowing wings stoops, and with sad 
and sorrowful countenance testifies a nation's grief at the 
mortality of her noblest citizen, the grandest man in whose 
veins ever coursed pure aboriginal blood. 

Well may the people mourn his departure. Well may 
they cherish his memory. Well may his tomb be a mecca 
where with daily visit and daily decoration citizens of 
Mexico testify their love and receive new inspirations of 



The Heart of Mexico. 29 

patriotism. Well may the fallen champion of liberty there 
rest and abide the verdict of history which will surely make 
perpetual record of his worth and work — his hard, his suc- 
cessful work of reform. He had carried on his soul a load 
of care — a mountain of woe, as he witnessed and felt the 
sorrows of his people, as he contended with priest and 
soldier, with church and insurgent army. He had ex- 
perienced the exuberance of joy attendant upon the over- 
throw of insurgent armies, his return in triumph to the capi- 
tal and the reorganization of the Republic on principles of 
liberty, justice and equality. But again had the load of 
woe been placed upon his soul when Napoleon HI. and his 
European fellow-conspirators against liberty and democracy 
landed their armies in Mexico, occupied the capital and 
sent him as a fugitive away from his rightful executive 
jurisdiction. For five years he wandered — a president un- 
seated. But his abiding faith in his mission sustained him. 
With dignity he worked and waited. Never in all the ages 
was there more dauntless courage, more stubborn will or 
clearer political perceptions. Nothing in all American his- 
tory or biography compares with it. He was a man with a 
single purpose using his unsurpassed opportunities. Mexico 
alone could have produced such a man or offered such grand 
opportunities. No statesman ever dictated more success- 
fully affairs of State. Nor Cromwell, nor Washington, nor 
Lincoln paralelled him in hazardous, perilous issues nor sur- 
passed him in glorious beneficent achievements. 

Shall we call it divine retribution ? Shall it be re- 
garded as testimony to the truth of the maxim ' ' The mills 
of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small?" 
The church was defeated, the foreign armies departed in- 
gloriously, the Austrian was executed, Juarez returned to 
and retained the presidency to the day of his death; theo- 
cracy gave place to democracy and the Republic of Mexico 
is established. The imperious Spaniard was finally out- 
classed and over-mastered, and his methods overthrown b}^ 
the Indian of his abhorrence and detestation. Mexico is 
regenerated and has assurance of a bright and glorious 



30 The Heart of Mexico. 

future freed from the Spain-cursed past. So mote it be. So 

will it be in Cuba. 

Let it not be said that this man and his works are un- 
dul}^ extolled. He revolutionized a nation and changed its 
basic principle of government. He gave his people liberty, 
equality and education. He defeated armies and political 
powers, domestic and foreign, including Pope Pius IX., 
who vainly launched anathemas, issued canon laws and 
sent a nuncio as his representative to give orders, point out 
lines of action and fix on objective points. For a quarter 
of a century the Vatican maintained opposition to the re- 
forms established and only in 1897 did it surrender to de- 
feat and fall into line. 

It seemed to be the will of God that the very idea of 
slavery should be obliterated in American history and that 
Lincoln should be his agent to effect that gracious and 
righteous achievement. So it seemed to be the will of God 
that the priest should cease as a dominant power in the 
political life and history of Mexico and that Juarez and 
Diaz were designated as his agents to consummate that 
beneficent end; witness this from the "Associated Press:" 

' ' President Diaz Triumphs. The Papal legate orders 
Catholics to obey the Reform Laws in Mexico. 

"Monterey, Mexico, January i6th, 1897. — Ever since 
the enactment of laws in Mexico regulating the Catholic 
church the ecclesiastical officials have opposed enforcement. 
Six months ago Archbishop Averfidi was sent to Mexico to 
investigate and now he has issued instructions that the laws 
must be strictly obeyed and that the church must support 
the Diaz administration." 

"The old order changeth yielding place to new. 
And God fulfills himself in many ways." 

Possibly, however, it is but the adoption of the policy 
of an eminent Hibernian business man and whilom ppliti- 
cian, in a prosperous western city, (now deceased) when in 
speaking of active and uncontrollable oppositions he would 
say, "If you can't beat 'em, jine em." 



The Heart of Mexico. 31 

With the fall of Maximilian and his empire the church 
party also fell, and though Juarez did not live to see the 
regeneration of the country in all its fulness it came in due 
time. Processes had been commenced in his life which 
were completed by Lerdo, his immediate successor, and the 
reforms foreshadowed in his decree of emancipation were 
enacted into the constitution in 1873. 

B_\- those amendments there is an absolute separation of 
church and state, congress is prohibited to make laws 
establishing or forbidding any religion. Matrimony is 
made to be a civil contract. The church can neither ac- 
quire or own real estate. A simple promise to speak the 
truth or perform ofhcial duties is substituted for a formal 
religious oath. All religious societies are prohibited, and 
all who had made obligations of ser^dce to such orders were 
absolved from fulfillment. 

The church had allied itself with royalty, with Iturbide, 
with centralism, with Santa Anna, with Zuloaga, with 
Miramon and finally with the French invaders and the em- 
pire of Maximilian in its determined and sanguinary efforts 
to maintain control of the government and the wealth of 
the country. Each and ever}^ one of them had failed and 
in the re-action the church and clergy have lost rights and 
privileges in Mexico which they have in other countries. 

The suppression of religious orders is not in the line of 
persecution, but is the exercise of wise political precautions, 
for from within their secret councils came intrigues, con- 
spiracies and revolutions. 

Juarez rescued the Mexican nation from the incubus of 
Spanish theocracy and behold what a quarter of a century 
has produced. "In the space of five lustres Mexico has 
been transformed. At death Juarez left behind him an im- 
poverished country- , whose broad expanse was continuously 
wasted by the torch of war; a countrj' whose boast of wealth 
seemed like a cruel iron}', without money at home, and 
credit, \\2.y even hope of credit abroad; whose foreign trade 
was insignificant; whose agriculture and manufactures were 



32 The Heart of Mexico. 

in the rudimentary stage; where even the mining industry 
was restricted and which had just enough railway mileage 
to enable its inhabitants to say they knew what a railroad 
was." (Mariscal.) 

Today Mexico is a grand country, with a grander 
future assured. With a disadvantageous financial system, 
based on silver alone, her wisely conducted revenues are 
sufl&cient to keep her bonds at par, and above it, in Europe. 
Her railway system amounts to twelve thousand kilometers 
— say seven thousand four hundred miles. These with 
canals and a complete telegraph system, facilitate business 
and research. Development of material resources offers 
field for safe and profitable investment. The revolutionist 
and bandit have passed, giving security to commercial en- 
terprise and travel. Asylums, sanitariums and hospitals 
take the place of imposing and costly church structures, 
show and parade. Free schools, with compulsory attend- 
ance, wherein no priest can direct or teach, are preparing 
her on-coming citizens for an intelligent exercise of the 
elective franchise. 

In 1866 only about 16,000 Mestizos and half that num- 
ber of Indians attended public schools, in 1876 the numbers 
were respectively 129,000 and 74,000, and in 1891 235,000 
and 170,005, while the per cent, of increase continues 
annually. The decrease of crime has been almost in direct 
ratio to the progress in education. Grave offences are few 
in number and becoming fewer every day. 

Mexico stands today, not the peer, but the superior of 
the United States in the matter of the enforcement of crim- 
inal statutes. She has no jury system and thus avoids that 
very abominable possibility for corrupt control of the 
methods and ends of justice. Neither, wealth, family or 
political influence, nor official positions can thwart justice 
by the interminable delays, changes of venue, new trials, 
continuances, stays of execution, and questionable decisions 
that obtain in some of the United States; establishing 
the conviction that the laws and the processes of justice — in 



The Hkart of Mexico. 33 

their easy perversion — give protection to criminals, speciall}'- 
when money is at the command of the offender. 

In this administration of prompt justice and in the 
matter of protest against clerical meddling in civil, political 
and educational affairs that much unknown and misinter- 
preted nation stands as an example to all the world beside. 

Whoever may trutlifully be the Washington of Mexico, 
whether Hidalgo or Iturbide, it must be conceded that 
Juarez well represents Lincoln, while for our most capable 
and successful soldier and able statesman, Ulysses S. Grant, 
none can compete as the paralell but Porfirio Diaz, the 
present chief magistrate of Mexico. Like Grant, he fought 
his country's battles upon field after field with unswerving 
loyalty to constitution and president, refusing a very seduc- 
tive offer from Bazaine of place, which promi.sed promotion 
to imperial rank and power, as Maximilian's star was becom- 
ing obscured and Napoleon III. wi.shed to substitute a Mex- 
ican for the Austrian on the throne. Like Grant, Diaz, b}^ 
choice of his fellow-citizens was exalted to the presidenc}-. 
For more than twent}' 3'ears he has shaped the laws and 
policies of the republic and guided it to an established 
domestic and foreign credit. 

Grant administered affairs of state on principles and 
by processes established in the j^ears of American history 
and experience. He filled the office of president with 
credit but left no special evidence of his administrations in 
the form of new and valuable principles or statutes. 

Diaz and his administrations will be perpetually im- 
pressed upon Mexican history b}- reason of new laws, new 
methods and new and valuable principles originated, de- 
veloped and established b\- him. Much that Juarez left un- 
finished Diaz has completed in the letter and spirit of re- 
form. Where Juarez laid down the work Diaz took it up, 
uniting in a common brotherhood all classes of the nation 
and initiating the grand intellectual evolution which recent 
3'ears have witnessed and which demonstrates the su- 
periorit}- of a Republic to a theocracy as a basic principle of 
government. Public improvements have been judiciously 



34 Thk Hkak'p oi'^ Mkxtci). 

prosecutcil. Business successfully encouraged. K(liic;Uit>ii 
suslaiueil anil forwarded. I^aws revised, codified and en- 
acted in the interest of justice and ei[uit>'. Courts of in- 
ferior and superior jurisdiction created. The police ren- 
dered efficient ii» country as well as municipality and the 
arni>' so commanded as to secure peace and freedom from 
revolution. A wise surveillance is exercised over the entire 
country, aided b>' tlaily telegrams which enables the presi- 
dent to keep his hand on the public pulse at all times. The 
bandit, the revolutionist and the ecclesiastical fanatic are 
controlled in the interest of peace, prosperity, stability, re- 
ligious libert>' and political education. 

It may truthfulh' be asserted that no national presiding 
officer in the wiuld, whatever the title may be, has better 
adaptation to his work, nor has been more successful as the 
benefactor of his people than Porfirio Diaz, president of the 
Republic of Mexico. 

Moreover Diaz is the ally of the United States in main- 
taining the principles of the Monroe Doctrine; going further, 
it is said, and insisted that Kuropean holdings in the 
Western Continent shall eventually cease. His friendship 
for this country is fully manifested at this time by his sup- 
pressing sympathy ami aid, fron\ v*-^panianls in INIexico, for 
vSpain. 

After Diaz what ? This momentous question confronts 
the statesmen and patriots of Mexico. The standing enemy 
of RiCFORM is the church, the clergy. No other party has 
or has had principles or plans in opposition. To meet and 
coiuiteract this ever-existing menace to liboity of con- 
,science, eilnc.it ion -uul progress it has pleased i>atriots cvf 
Mexico to organize "'Socie;tiiss ofthic Rijforim" through- 
out the entire country, who.se object and intention is to keep 
ecclesiasticism out ol" political and state affairs including 
education. 

Those luwing aiuhout\ .md control lia\-e apptiintod 
three luuulred and sixt\' five decoration days for each year. 
Daily a .society or its representatives with appropriate cere- 
monies makes visit and floral be.stowment to the tombs of 



Till', lli;.\K'i' <)!■ Mi';xiC(). .•^.S 

the Reformers. This is to poi)iilari/,e and perpcliuile llie 
era and principles of " L,A Rrforma " and is also inlended 
to prevent any tendency to ecclesiastical reaction. 

It pleased the PontifT of Rome, in 1840, to send an alj- 
lej^ate to Mexico. His coming having been heralded there 
was a wonderful demonstration of welcome. All Mexico 
ro.se up to do him Jionor. In 1H96 the same venerable po- 
tentate, in the person of I^eo XIII., .sent Archbi.shop Aver- 
fidi in the same office and duty as ablegate. Notwithstand- 
ing the heralding of his coming only one priest and one 
representative of the press met liiiii at tlie station to do him 
honor and give him early welcome. 

That he might pu1)licly make known his niissi(Mi a ])a- 
villion of .six thousand seating capacity was secured. Tliere, 
before a full house the ablegate discoursed upon the anti- 
quity of the Hoi.Y Skk its divine authorily as RULER OP THE 
WORLD, the inten.se love of the Holy Father Leo XIII. to- 
ward his people of all nations and specially towards Mexi- 
cans. He in official capacity earnestly entreated them to 
resume their fealty as of yore. A distinguished Mexican 
orator on behalf of the officials of the Republic and the 
people replied, substantially, that they desired no clo.ser rela- 
tion to the Vatican than that su.stained at the time. He 
bade the Archbi.shop to look upon the Mexico of to-day 
under the auspices of the Republic and then compare it 
with the Mexico of Theocratic rule. He alleged that no 
classes had suffered lo.ss by the change but priests and tax- 
gatherers, while the whole people otherwise had been bene- 
ficiaries of the reform. 

He then and there informed the distinguished agent of 
the Pope that if priests were in demand by the holy father 
for work elsewhere Mexico could and cheerfully would spare 
an army of them for such foreign .service. 

These evidences of individual resolve, of policies, of 
.sentiment and good sense answer the query, " After Diaz 
what ? ' ' 

Mexican history never can repeat itself. It arose like 
a flood and swept away custom, tradition, superstition and 
eccle.sia.stical politician like a tidal wave. But the turbulent 



36 The Heart of Mexico. 

tide of events has left a smooth, calm sea upon which the 
ship of state sails on majestically bearing a precious freight 
of liberty, development and prosperity — and no priest can 
stand at the helm. 

If the Mexican people have not attained to all possible 
heights of education, and to all degrees of development they 
yet, under their democratic form of government, have the 
right and privilege to advance, unburdened bj^ priestly re- 
strictions and relieved of the inexorable rapacity of the tax 
collector — coparcener with ecclesiasticism — which had so 
long a rule under the theocracy. The people are surely, 
even if slowly, moving toward higher planes of individual 
and national attainment by the paths of education, self- 
assertion and intelligent patriotism. They advance and do 
not retrograde. 

With a retrospect of the closing centurj^ it seems in- 
disputable that among progressive nations Mexico has made 
the greatest advances in reform and development; while 
among the great number of eminent men who have im- 
pressed themselves upon the records as humanitarians, re- 
formers, educators and statesmen, Benito Pablo Juarez 
and Porfirio Diaz rank all, who by initiating and effecting 
reforms have made glorious and illustrious this Nineteenth 
Century of Christ. 

THE end. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




015 834 921 8 



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